A sheriff’s investigation of the 2008 incident in Humble concluded that Lt. Louis Guthrie led a squad of deputies that cordoned off the business with crime scene tape for an hour as they questioned employees.

Guthrie filed suit against Sheriff Adrian Garcia last week, charging that he was suppressing public records that Guthrie needs to make the case to get his job back. Guthrie’s attorney contends that his firing was not consistent with the discipline the sheriff metes out to other violators of department policies.

The Commission voted 2-1 to uphold the sheriff’s decision to fire Guthrie. Commissioners Martha Wong and Joe Stevens voted to uphold the firing. Commissioner Annette Baldwin voted to give Guthrie his job back by softening his termination to a suspension, the commission’s executive director said.

23 Responses

Don’t feel bad lutienent, Constable Jack Abercia fired me after I caught a Lutinent and his deputy wife stealing county property. The lutienent being both of our supervisors set me up and false reported training to tcleose which cost me my right to work and all was proven in depositions and harris county did nothing. This only proves integrety does not pay in harris county.

Sounds to me like Commissioner Baldwin has probably lost ashtray change at the local car wash and was hoping this guy could get it back.

Sad that people like this even managed to get through the academy, let alone were promoted through the system. We need officers and deputies that are responsible and accountable for their actions. We in turn have to support them for the difficult task that we have entrusted them with.

Abuse of power is the reason he was fired took the officers off thier regular beat to find some loose change taken from thier car what an idiot hope the un-employment check and your food stamps suffice in keeping you in the life style you were in lmao

Well it is official. Even if you don’t violate policy or state law you can still be fired. Don’t believe it? Just simply look at the Civil Service ruling on May 12, 2010. It is simply amazing while I was sitting there listening to the testimony of the case, the different stories being told and then of hearing the decision at the end of how this could happen.

One of the comments I heard in the decision by two of the Commissioners was something to the affect of how they didn’t want to second guess the Sheriff in his decision. Could someone please explain the purpose for Civil Service if that isn’t their job? The two ruling Commissioners, Joe Stephens and Martha Wong, should be ashamed of themselves and I began to wonder if they were actually listening to the same testimony I had heard. Were we in the same room? Annette Baldwin was in the same room and she ruled in favor of the employee from the evidence heard today.

If there is any possible way for the Chairman to step in he definitely should in this matter. The department wasn’t able to show a policy violated. No criminal charges were substantiated yet the employee gets canned. This clearly shows we are an “at will” department and can be tossed to the curb at any time if it is the will of the department to do so and the so called civil service protections and oversight are just a sham.

Let’s say you were involved in a civil case. There were recordings involved in the case you knew about but failed to turn them over when asked for them. Probably hurt the case and have sanctions placed against you. Not here at the Harris County Sheriff’s Office. Recordings don’t come to light until the Texas Attorney General’s Office gets involved. Later, when the investigator gets questioned if he remembers telling the County Attorney there were no recordings and replies, “I don’t recall” it begins to make you wonder.

It doesn’t matter how well you may do the job. It doesn’t matter how many years you have with the department. It doesn’t matter you didn’t violate any departmental policy. It doesn’t matter if there were no laws broken. What matters is if the Sheriff makes a wrong decision, the Civil Service Commission does not feel it is there DUTY or OBLIGATION to right the wrong.

Don’t feel bad lutienent, Constable Jack Abercia fired me after I caught a Lutinent and his deputy wife stealing county property. The lutienent being both of our supervisors set me up and false reported training to tcleose which cost me my right to work and all was proven in depositions and harris county did nothing. This only proves integrety does not pay in harris county.

He had no right to push his badge into his personal life. He abused his offical powers for such a stupid act and deserves what he got. I hope his wife is happy with the results and the lesson should be to follow the chain of command by making a reported thru dispatch and on the record. You do not use aggression to think that people (citizens) are stupid or ignorant of the law. In my opinion, he may of committed other stupid acts and needed to be terminated a long time ago.

Guthrie was fired because he was against the illegals standing at Wimbledon and Stuebner Airline. Our so called “sheriff” is mexican. That is the story. The car wash incident just handed the admin. his job on a sliver platter. I worked for Guthrie. He was a great supervisor and all races that worked for him loved him. His wife is severely disabled and he overreacted to the car wash incident.